


Will the Real Jessica Wakefield Please Stand Up

by Tartanshell



Category: Sweet Valley High - Pascal
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-21
Updated: 2009-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-04 20:57:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/34060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tartanshell/pseuds/Tartanshell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This isn't just one of Jessica's phases.  It may be the first real thing she's ever felt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Will the Real Jessica Wakefield Please Stand Up

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tornyourdress](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tornyourdress/gifts).



> Tornyourdress, I hope you like it! Happy Holidays!

Jessica Wakefield stirred her melted ice cream sundae listlessly, oblivious to the laughter and happy chatter around her. It was the weekend before Christmas break, and Casey's was packed. The whole mall was packed with people doing their holiday shopping, with junior-high kids and SVH students out on afternoon dates or hanging out with their friends, all of them enjoying spending a beautiful Saturday afternoon surrounded by the smells from the perfume counters and the cookie place, with the twinkling lights and oversized, glittering ornaments overhead.

Normally, the mall was one of Jessica's favorite places, especially at Christmastime. She loved it all: the smells, the glitz, the music, the holiday displays and too many poinsettia decorations and the crowds of people and the sales. Today, she'd come to cheer herself up, but it wasn't working. Even the 25% off sale at Lisette's hadn't seemed tempting, and the strawberry sundae with extra whipped cream she'd bought as a last-ditch effort was currently a pink puddle in her bowl. She was a hundred and thirty-seven different kinds of miserable, and it was all Elizabeth's fault. Her entire family was awful, criminally horrible and she ought to run away, but it had all started with Elizabeth.

Sighing, she shook her head. She and Elizabeth looked like mirror-images of one another, sure. They were both five-foot-six with perfect, healthy size six figures. They had the same shoulder-length, wavy sun-streaked blond hair and the same blue-green eyes the exact color of the Pacific Ocean. But that's where the similarities ended. Elizabeth, Jessica's big sister by four minutes, was dependable. Responsible, perfect, boring old Saint Elizabeth. She never changed, and even when she tried to spice things up, she ended up right back where she started. She was the same person at sixteen she'd been at twelve. A good student who wanted to be a writer and was active on the school newspaper. A good listener and everybody's friend. Everyone agreed that she was the nicest person at school, and everyone--no matter how big of a loser they were--went to her with their problems. And, of course, a talk with good old sensitive, trustworthy Saint Elizabeth usually helped.

Jessica had lost count of how many sob-story, made-for-TV-movie problems Elizabeth had helped fix, how many causes she'd jumped on board with because of some new friend of hers. She'd helped people with drug problems, with weight problems, with disabilities, with serious fashion emergencies. She'd helped unpopular girls get into Phi Beta and onto the cheerleading squad, helped jail criminals and keep innocent people out of jail. She'd rescued runaways. She'd rushed to fight sexism, racism, disable-ism, fat-ism, every kind of -ism there was, and some there probably weren't actually -ism words for.

Her latest cause was fighting homophobia. And that was Tom McKay's fault--his and drippy Enid Rollins' hot-but-gay cousin's--and Jessica hated them for it. It was even Amy's fault, a little bit. Jessica couldn't hate Amy, any more than she could really hate Elizabeth, but she was still blazingly furious and seethingly resentful.

Jessica tossed her crumpled paper napkin on top of her ice cream in disgust and stalked out of Casey's. Outside, she kept her eyes on the ground and ignored Annie Whitman when she called hello. She made it as far as the driver's seat of the Fiat Spider she shared with her sister before bursting into loud, racking tears, and she put her head on the steering wheel and just let herself cry.

Last night was the worst, most embarrassing night of her life, and it was all Elizabeth's fault. It had started two months ago, when stupid Tom McKay came out of the stupid closet and told the entire school he was gay. He said it loud and proud up onstage with the band at Lila's Halloween bash, and of course he credited Saint Elizabeth with giving him the courage and acceptance he needed to tell everyone the truth. He'd thanked Amy Sutton, too, but that hadn't seemed so strange.

Lila had been horrified at first, afraid her party was ruined, but what happened next was, Jessica had to admit, pretty cool. First Elizabeth and Enid and Winston started clapping, and then Tom's friends joined in, and pretty soon the whole party was loud with applause and whistles and people shouting congratulations. But the next Monday at school, things were different. Of course everyone knew by then, but not everyone was as accepting as their crowd. Things got ugly for awhile, starting with some terrible stuff scrawled on Tom's locker and lots of whispers in the halls, and it only escalated until Tom and his friends and some senior boys got into a huge fight during halftime of the football game on Friday.

But Saint Elizabeth saved the day, and the next Monday, the Sweet Valley High Gay-Straight Alliance was born. As Liz explained at a special assembly, the club would have all kinds of fun events and programming designed to help everyone get along, regardless of their sexuality, and it would also be a great resource for people who were questioning their own sexuality, or had already discovered they were gay or a lesbian or bisexual or transgender, and also for friends or family of people who were gay or lesbian or bisexual or transgender. Jessica hadn't known what half of that stuff meant at first--she'd thought homophobia was what they did to milk. But she was willing to learn, partly because she liked Tom, and partly because Amy forced her and Lila to go to the first meeting.

Tom and Amy had gotten really close over the summer, which had puzzled Jessica at first. It wasn't like Amy to forget a slight, and Tom had been downright rude when he turned her down for date after date. Jessica had eventually chalked it up to yet another of Amy's Project Youth personality changes, and the mystery had only irritated her when Amy turned down invitations to shop or swim or go out for a burger because she was hanging out with Tom. As it turned out, Tom revealed during that first GSA meeting, Jessica's hunch had been right. He had been calling Project Youth. And though he hadn't wanted to talk to Amy at first, one time he reached her and took a chance using a fake name, and they hit it off as friends.

Even though Amy forced the issue, Jessica was glad she went. And with both Wakefield twins members of the GSA, the group quickly became the most popular club at school. More people came out of the closet, but not anyone Jessica knew well. And even more people shared that they had gay and lesbian moms, or dads, or aunts or uncles or cousins. Pretty soon, being gay or bisexual was the height of cool at SVH, and more than a few girls--mostly freshmen--started cutting their hair short and dating each other and holding hands in the halls.

This Friday, the first day of winter break, was going to be the biggest GSA event so far. They were one of the clubs in charge of the Snowflake Dance, and it was going to be the best party in Sweet Valley history. Absolutely everyone who was anyone was involved, and Jessica herself had spent many hours helping to choose the hottest, most danceable music and the most chic decorations.

It had seemed only fitting, with such a special event coming up, to have a special conversation with her family at dinner last night. It was Steven's first night home from SVU, since his break started a week earlier, and they were having a nice family meal to celebrate the end of his final exams.

The evening had started off perfectly. Jessica had gotten home late after cheerleading practice and a stop at the Dairi-Burger for a soda with her friends. Liz had already set the table with their fancy china and a white tablecloth, and she'd prepared a beautiful salad with fresh tomatoes and avocado. The twins' father, Ned, was out grilling steaks on the patio and talking to Steven, and Jessica had stopped and watched them for a moment, smiling at how similar they looked, both of them tall and dark-haired and handsome. Her mother was in the kitchen, slicing fresh French bread on the butcher block countertop. Dressed in jeans with her blond hair pulled back in a simple ponytail, Alice Wakefield looked like she could be the twins' older sister. Her family was so beautiful and perfect, and Jessica was filled with love for them as she took her place at the table...not least because they'd already done all the work.

She waited until they'd all raised their glasses to Steven and everyone else started eating before clearing her throat. "I have something I'd like to celebrate, too," she said, feeling butterflies fluttering in her stomach. She looked around at all of their curious faces in turn before landing on Elizabeth's, and she took a deep breath. "I want you all to know that...I think I'm a lesbian, or maybe bisexual. I like girls."

Ned dropped his fork, which landed on his plate with a clatter, but other than that, the room was silent for a long moment. Then Steven started hooting with laughter. "You?" he gasped. "Jessica Wakefield, the most boy-crazy girl in Sweet Valley?"

Alice frowned. "Jessica, I don't think--"

But Elizabeth jumped to her feet, furious. "Jess, how dare you?" she demanded, putting her hands on her hips. Her ponytail swayed back and forth as she shook her head. "You think questioning your sexuality is a game? That it's something to do because it's popular?" She turned to their parents, rolling her eyes. "You know the GSA has taken off at school, and everyone thinks being gay is so cool," she explained. "And I'm really glad that people are so accepting, but it's almost becoming a fad. Trust Jessica to jump right on board," she finished, sounding disgusted.

For a moment, Jessica could only stare at her, dumbfounded. How could Elizabeth--dependable, sensitive Elizabeth--even think something like that? How could she understand what Tom McKay was going through but not even see her sister, her own twin, standing right in front of her? "Liz," she choked out, almost in tears, "I'm not--"

"Come on, Jess," Steven said, still chuckling. "In the last year alone, should we count your crazy obsessive phases? You've wanted to be a lawyer, an actress, a model, a news anchor, and a professional cheerleader. Homecoming Queen and Prom Queen and a rock star and in a cult..."

"Don't forget all the times you've 'reinvented' yourself," Elizabeth added as she resumed her seat, cutting a bite of steak. She gestured with it, the meat dripping off the end of her fork. "You've wanted to be more studious, work on the newspaper like I do, and save the rainforests. You wanted to join the Peace Corps, and a week later, you wanted to be an entrepreneur. There was Tofu-Glo and the jewelry and the letter-writing service. Not to mention the times you've dyed your hair or bought a new wardrobe just because you wanted to be someone new and different."

"Like--what was it, Magneto Spaceship?" Steven asked. "You know, when you were a punk rocker."

"Magenta Galaxy," Elizabeth corrected, giggling. "And Daniella Fromage! Jess, you know fromage is cheese, right?"

Tears filled her eyes. "I--this is--"

"They do have a point, Jess," Alice said gently, looking concerned. "You've never seemed very sure of what you want, and you do bounce from one interest to another quickly."

"That's true," Ned added. "Liz has always wanted to be a writer, but you..." He spread his hands.

"You might as well put yourself in a pink box and call yourself Barbie," Steven said bluntly. "She's an astronaut and a teacher and a vet and a cheerleader..."

That was when Jessica had stormed off, leaving her untouched steak behind.

They'd all apologized at breakfast--no doubt Saint Elizabeth was to thank there--but no one brought up Jessica's announcement. She didn't say anything about it, either. They'd never believe her. Not in a hundred million years. Even if she cut off all of her hair and stopped wearing makeup and stopped shaving her legs and kissed a girl in the living room in front of all of them, they'd never believe she meant it.

They'd never know that she'd bounced from boyfriend to boyfriend and had never felt anything real, and she'd thought something was wrong with her until that first meeting of the GSA.

No one else was home when she pulled into the driveway of their split-level home on Calico Drive, and Jessica was glad. She didn't want to see any of them right now. After snagging a bottle of water from the fridge, she hurried upstairs to her bedroom, taking the cordless phone from the hallway with her. Flopping onto her bed, she dialed a familiar number with one perfectly-polished purple fingernail.

"Project Youth, this is Barry."

"Hi, Barry," she said. "Is Alex there today?"

"Sure. Hold on, and I'll transfer you."

Alex was one of the Project Youth volunteers. Jessica had gotten her by chance, the first time she'd called, and they'd hit it off. Like her, Alex was sixteen and a junior, though Jessica didn't know if she went to Sweet Valley High or another school nearby. She didn't know any girls named Alex at SVH. And like her, Alex was wondering about her sexuality. Her older cousin was gay, she'd told Jess, and she'd always felt different from her pretty, popular girlfriends. Like there had always been something missing, something she wasn't understanding. Alex had tried drugs to help her deal with all of her mixed-up feelings, but those hadn't helped, and now she was a straight-A student with a clean--she'd laughingly said boring--lifestyle. Jessica thought she sounded wonderful, someone who'd been through a lot and was still so upbeat and even-keeled. She'd even wondered, if she and Alex were to meet, if...

"Hello, Project Youth, this is Alex," came Alex's low, pretty voice over the phone line. Jessica's fingers tightened around the receiver.

"Hi, Alex. This is Daniella." She'd never dared to use her real name, and little did Liz and Steven know that she had re-used her old alias...though she had left off the fromage.

"Daniella! Hi!" Alex sounded genuinely happy to hear from her, and Jessica smiled. Lately, she felt closer to Alex than anyone else, even her friends. Even Liz. At least Alex understood what she was going through, and believed her.

They talked for over an hour, until Jessica heard her family come home downstairs and said she had to go. They were about to hang up when she paused, and took a deep breath. She felt so much better after talking to Alex, and every time she called Project Youth, she never wanted to hang up. Maybe it was time for them to meet, after all.

"Hey, Alex," she said, before they hung up, "the Sweet Valley GSA is having a dance on Friday. Would you--do you think you'd like to go with me?" It was almost funny how much harder this was than asking any boy out had ever been.

There was a long pause, and she could hear Alex breathing. "I--yes. I would. I'd like that."

Jessica grinned. "Want to pick me up at eight? I can give you my address."

"Actually...why don't we meet there?" Alex suggested. "We can both wear something special, some signal so we'll know each other."

"White corsages on our wrists?" Jessica suggested, thinking how elegant a white orchid would look with her new sleeveless silver sweater dress.

"Perfect."

***

The Sweet Valley High gymnasium was decorated more beautifully than Jessica had ever seen it. Thousands of white lights had been strung from the ceiling, and centerpieces of white flowers and glittering ice sculptures stood on every table. The music was perfect. The food was perfect. The muted rainbow snowflakes were the most perfect touch of all.

But she scarcely saw any of it, following Elizabeth and Todd inside. She was too nervous to make a grand entrance, too excited to play it cool. Her eyes scanned the room, and then she froze, as silver and still as one of the ice sculptures herself.

Enid Rollins was standing across the room, looking like she was searching the place for someone, too. In a simple navy silk dress and low heels, with her auburn hair pulled back into a soft French braid, she looked prettier than Jessica would have thought possible. And then Enid caught sight of her and stared, too.

On Enid's wrist was a white carnation corsage, with a tiny trailing rainbow ribbon. She lifted her hand, tentatively.

The world tilted, but Jessica Wakefield was always one step ahead of whatever life threw at her, always leaping before she looked and landing on her feet. In heels.

She took a deep breath and a step forward, and gave Enid Alexandra Rollins a tiny wave. Enid's answering smile lit up her face like a Christmas tree.


End file.
